As I write this story, after one of those best kinds of after-church-naps, I realized the day was September 11, the infamous date 15 years ago when America lost her innocence.
The absence of my column lately was due to the fact that my wife and I have been traveling from the Gulf Coast of Mississippi to the Ozarks of Arkansas. Most of the traveling has been job related for her and I have been “Driving Ms. Daisy”. But we always try to mix a little pleasure along the way and make an adventure out of it. For example, while in Biloxi we celebrated our thirty- fifth wedding anniversary and ate some fancy seafood.
While in the Ozarks, my wife and her boss had a business meeting in Mountain Home, so his grandson Jarred and I went on a trout fishing trip on the North Fork River. We stayed at a fish camp overlooking the river. I had a tooth that had been bothering me and had been procrastinating about getting it tended to. Yep, you guessed it, the night before the fishing trip as I ate supper something went way wrong and the little ache turned into major pain. Being the old, tuff, former Marine I kept going and ate enough BC powders to kill an ox. My wife tried to get me to go to a clinic up there but I refrained, being the stubborn old mule that I am. Believe me, I paid the price with misery.
The trout fishing was great and we caught our limit and then about five times that. After our limit we had to catch and release. Jarred had never been trout fishing before and he was beating my britches off at first but I finally caught up. We saw mink and otters playing on the rocks along the river as we fished. That morning as we were waiting for our guide, the fog was heavy along the river. We could barely see a man fly fishing in the middle. Jarred asked, “Is he standing on something?” I said, “I don’t know. Is that Jesus or Peter walking on the water?” We later found out there was a small island that is exposed when the river is down. This water is controlled by a huge dam which behind it holds the Norfork Lake. This river fluctuates several feet up and down by the dam so it is constantly changing.
Jarred caught the biggest, a nice brown trout but it was just under the limit. The next day my wife and I were going on a bass fishing trip with one of her former co-workers from the home office in Mountain Home who is now working for the Federal fish hatchery there at Norfork. He had a new Bass Cat boat and was proud of it. We caught a few bass in that crystal clear water of Norfork Lake, which is surrounded by huge rock cliffs and the Ozark Mountains. We saw a deer along the edge of the water and an eagle flew right overhead during the outing. It was all beautiful. As the fishing slowed, he took us sightseeing at top speeds. With the wakes of house boats and other boats, my tooth was screaming bloody murder. I finally waved him down and told him that my need for speed was over. I hated to be a party pooper but I was in pain.
My wife and I then went to Mountain View that evening to the Ozark Folk Center and on the way home we stopped in Hardy. You can bet the following Monday morning I got to the dentist where Dr. Gundy and his staff fixed me up.
I am still angry that terrorists attacked us on our own soil and I will never forget that day. I can’t help but think about what the future holds. As we were keeping our youngest grandson Jase yesterday we watched the old classic movie and tear-jerker, “Where the Red Fern Grows”. I thought about Jase’s innocence and how simple times were during the time period of the movie. I couldn’t help but wonder what he might see in his lifetime, which caused me to shed a few more tears than usual, but not because of my toothache, that pain is gone.
On the Porch with Dirk is a recurring article written by Dirk Thayer, an avid outdoorsman and storyteller.
